Blowed up real good!

"gave up the ghost"!!! Heart be still, you are not nearly aged enough for that one! Lol lyle, you are wealth of knowledge in ways I've lost count!

Loving this episode!

I’m ready for part two! 🇺🇸

Looks like a quality build. Waiting on part 2 and some nice tones.

Good Morning Lyle, thanks for looking into this amp for me. I know it's in good hands. *edit (I had it set to 8 ohms for use with an OxBox IR load box)

My dad is a truck driver and he delivers parts for ToneKing teehee. They share the same factory as Morgan, Friedman, and more. I always tease him to steal an amp for me

Awesome. I had just asked about the TK Imperial MkIi on the live stream last week.

Looking forward to the next video(s) about this amp.

Wow, blowing the ceramic off those wire wound resistors takes one heck of a surge in that area of the circuit. Looking forward to the diagnosis and repair.

So informative, future amp purchases will be more evidence, and design flaw based. Thank you kind sir!

WOW - on the 10 watt resistors, your were correct - I couldn't see the cracks in the video, but when you put the exacto knife to them they opened up like oysters. I've never seen that before. I'm going to watch part 2 now - great job Lyle.

Waiting patiently for part two

Good stuff. We love ourselves a mystery.

It looks very well laid out, it’s disappointing to see those quick disconnects plugged in wrong for an otherwise clean looking amp! Look forward to the next episode!

Liking this so far... This amp is on my short list! Waiting to here "The rest of the story..." 🙂

I can’t wait to see the follow up on this one!

BLEW up!!

I'm seriously considering one of these amps. Great to see the guts and hear your opinion! Can't wait for part two!

Nice cliff hanger… I hope the manufacturer is quick to respond…

Very interesting 😎👍

Well, i've never seen the inside of a ceramic resistor before, so thanks. Also, holy crap that's a wild failure mode. Funny to me they cared so much as to scrape the markings off of them.

I repaired a falcon and an older model sky king with crazy triangular pcbs in the past couple years. Both had little build details that caused problems... Falcon had a side mounted radial cap with a snapped leg from lack of support that took out the relay supply. Cool amps, but they seem to be a bit overcomplicated and underbuilt...

Such interesting problems from such an interesting amplifier.

No Smoke King...

I learned something new today! I had/ have a Traynor ycv40 that shipped with 5881s and it has the spring retainers. And I always wondered why it was the only one with the springs and why all the other amps have the bear trap style retainers. And now it makes total sense because the bear trap style ones would not be optimal for 5881s.

Thanks for doing a video on one of these. I like their amps. But def interested to know what caused that ceramic to crack like that. Thanks as aways, cant thank you enough. :-)

​@psionicaudio you seem to be very expert on amps. And I very often hear from you not to spend money on industry amps.. But what, say 15w tube amp would you advise to buy, not boutique, an industrial build easy to buy? Thanks

I have the earlier handwired version of this amp. Any thoughts to its build quality?

That’s the only time I’ve seen a ceramic 10 watt get hot enough to cook off the ink and split like that! I’d almost wager that the heat alone from the resistors made that cap fail. They had to be hot enough to boil water twice!

Fly high Sky King😔

Wow when you split that ceramic cap my jaw hit the flaw. I'm not a scientist but I can only imagine how hot that must have become to cause that .. Amazing it didn't start a fire!

Man I’ve seen those ten watt resistors do that where the smaller 5 watt were just fine. I wonder if there’s a bad batch of those or even a mistake in their design.

pc mounted tube sockets?

4:24 These retainers biting the tube glass is a huge oversight on BAD’s part If I remember correctly my Falcon Grande came with Tungsols that had a full sized plastic base. Also I thought the sky king was the one Tone King model that was p2p not circus board. Great video 🎉

I'm attempting my first ever amp repair. Just scored a peavey rage for ten bucks....jealous? Input jack works intermittently, so I'm gonna replace it or attempt to.

Those sovteks output tubes look 100% like russian made 6P3S-e tubes. I'm using them as 6L6GC equivalent. They're military grade tubes with lifetime about 5000hrs. They were designed to use in avionics like strategic bombers or so.

I finally got my new one today. I turned power on, tuned guitar up and waited 5 min. Flipped standby and now it won’t turn on at all :(. I haven’t even played a lick on it. Was plugged into a brand new ground socket, I had installed 8 months ago in my studio. So now I’m guessing new fuse? And if they keep blowing…yet another amp to send back 🤦‍♂️. Only fuses I have on me are 2a, this is 3a. So not sure whether to try just to see if it works. Update: went through 3 Sky King amps, and all had loud hum, static or blew fuses. So it’s going back, and sticking with the Imperial MK2. The Tranny and power sections would make a loud buzz mechanically in amp..then it would transfer to the reverb and Ultralinear most the time. Random times the amps would stop producing sound. Also the hum would get louder on the middle attenuator setting? Lots of issues with this build on 3 total I’ve tried….probably should have left it the way it was originally built. The Imperial MK2 I’ve had no issues with, and seems they kept that built pretty close to what it was. Update 2: (October 2023)- I’m happy to say TK/BAD did honor the warranty. It was a board recall for Rev D. As long as you get the newer Rev E, which is in production at the time of this writing…you’re good! You can watch the last TK video in this series and find out. I would just not buy used, unless Rev E is stated by the buyer. I suspect the Rev E and above given they revise years from now should be good. Plus lifetime warranty if defects are found. But only to the original owner. So this does make buying this amp used a difficult decision! New you’re protected and will get the new board that is fixed. Used it is a toss up, and you probably be better off used buying the original Bartel one from 2014 or so. Those can be fixed and worked on at a premium given layout. The Rev D board as seen in this video isn’t one component, but the ground plain all by the power tubes and back. You cannot simply fix that, it will fail not matter what at some point. If it was a component failure no problem. The Rev E has fixed the board and did away with the ground plain issue. So if something does fail, at least it’s repairable. Point and case if an amps PCB board, and these are high grade PCB compared to Fender Reissue and Marshall. They are super thick and durable boards. But a faulty board is the boat, and the people are the pieces that make up the amp. You can’t sail, if you don’t have a boat, but you can buy a ticket if the boat exists. It reminds me of the Marshall TSL2000 days and I owned one. They had so many issues first run, and had to swap the board…however it was revised in the 2000s. Similar case but SKY KING parts, are not just a common buy online like a replacement part or board for a Marshall. I give big credit to BAD/TK for fixing the issue, and honoring the warranty. If this amp is up your ally, it’s a gorgeous sounding amp. Very much worth to buy it new, and try to get the price down to $2600-$2700 range…that’s about what I paid. And yes I am happy with the amp, regardless of the bad timing when I bought it. BAD/TK covered all shipping costs as well.

I can't say that I have ever seen a ceramic resistor that had broken from anything other than physical impact. Seeing two of them, side by side is very strange. Is it possible they might have been damaged prior to installation? Did you see any signs of thermal damage to the PCB near those resistors? I would think if they got hot enough to crack, that there would be some damage there. Interesting wiring modification.

What a cliff hanger.

I put those coin base tubes in my PRS HDRX-20 because they're supposedly high quality low noise/mil-spec/low microphonic but I also replaced the bear-traps with spring retainers. Surprised those sharp bear trap points don't crack regular tube bases after repeated heat cycles/vibration.

It looks pretty good, but sorry.. if I have to shell out that kind of money I'll look for different brand. Even my cheap Ampeg never gave me issues.

My guess is the speaker is a relabeled Celestion Vintage 30. 60W rms and 16 ohms, greenish gold basket.

Some Tone Kings feature two 50 ohm 10 W attenuation circuit resistors. If they blow open, it means troubles to output stage, OT and output tubes. Maybe those resistors you did so effortlessly that autopsy to, were attenuation resistors?

So, what is your opinion on the old Tonekings? Anything I need to be concerned about.?

You're like an amp Sherlock Holmes.

The wire being disconnected and the discrepencies between the printed and actual location of the other wires is very odd. You would think they would get that right on a $3000 amp, but I would be shaking my head to see a wire just dangling about like that, with a connector on it no less.

effin pharma ads...they are going to drive me away from youtube

So it’s a Blown King 😆😆😆

Yikes, very interesting. Also, let's see how many try to correct the blowed vs blew ;) It's humour, people.

What does assembled in the United States mean.

Would love to see you get your hands on an original 64 Vibroverb or 64 custom.

It fell..

I really like my Gremlin I wonder what it looks like in the guts. I hesitate to take it apart

ConFused here. Is it " blew up"? (Non native English here)

I had a Tone King Gremlin. It was junk. They pay content creators to give them rage reviews, obviously. It's definitely a brand to avoid - very cheap inside. I'm not impressed - over hyped. My AC15C1 with a different speaker and reverb tank is the sweetest amp I own, yet boutique guys will turn their nose up at it.

This is so disappointing to see. Clearly I will continue staying away from BAD made stuff. It is just about wrapping cheap electronics into candy colored tolex, giving it beautiful names and asking for a clearly unjustified premium. This is especially when thinking longterm not a win-win relationship between BAD and guitarist but a win-loose. There are videos of their production plant (maybe from the one that burned down). For people that have an eye for how a high and consistent quality output plant should look like there are lots of signs making clear that BAD is not there where their marketing promise would like to see them.